1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a connecting member for the electrically conductive connection of two components, and in particular to a connecting member by which radio-frequency signals can be transmitted between two components, and in particular two printed circuit boards, with the greatest possible freedom from losses.
2. Description of Related Art
In the case of connecting members of this kind, it is necessary to ensure that the radio-frequency signals are transmitted with the greatest possible freedom from losses even within a defined range of tolerances on the parallelism of the two printed circuit boards and on the distance between them. Further requirements to be met by such connecting members lie in the areas of inexpensive manufacture and easy assembly. Also, the axial and radial dimensions of the connecting member need to be kept as small as possible.
What are used at the moment are chiefly connecting members of this kind of two designs.
On the one hand, a connection is made between two printed circuit boards by means of two co-axial plug-in connectors which are solidly connected to the printed circuit boards and an adapter, the so-called “bullet”, which connects the two co-axial plug-in connectors. This adapter allows axial and radial tolerances to be compensated for and also allows tolerances on parallelism to be compensated for. Typical co-axial plug-in connectors used for this purpose are SMP connectors, mini-SMP connectors and FMC connectors.
Alternatively, electric connections are also made between two printed circuit boards by means of spring-loaded contact pins, so-called Pogo pins, of single-conductor and/or multi-conductor construction. Spring-loaded contact pins of this kind comprise a sleeve and a head which is partly guided within the sleeve plus a coil spring which is supported between the head and the sleeve. The properties with respect to resilient force and solid height which the coil spring is required to have call for springs of relatively great length, which have a commensurate adverse effect on the overall axial height of the spring-loaded contact pins. The use of spring-loaded contact pins of single-conductor construction also has the disadvantage that they have to be laid out in a particular pattern to act as signal and ground pins if satisfactory electrical performance is to be achieved. Multi-conductors on the other hand are prone to faults and costly due to their complicated construction.